Sam Costa

Costa was of Sephardic Jewish-Portuguese ancestry (Costa is a Jewish Portuguese surname). The son of journalist Gabriel Costa and Annie (née Sawer), he married Esther Comer in 1938, and they were married for over 40 years until he died in 1981. He was the great uncle of the radio presenter Andy Jacobs.

Sam Costa began as a pianist with Bert Firman's band and later became a popular British dance band singer in the 1930s making many records with bands such as Lew Stone, Harry Leader, Maurice Winnick and Jay Wilbur.

After his crooning days, his BBC radio career began with the It's That Man Again (ITMA) shows with Tommy Handley, then he worked with Kenneth Horne, Richard Murdoch and Maurice Denham in Much Binding in the Marsh. On Sundays he did both Breakfast Time and Glamorous Nights and he also presented Housewives' Choice and Midday Spin, transitioning to BBC Radio 2 from 1967. Costa would sign off saying "Thank you for the pleasure of your company". Along with Kenneth Horne, Costa also appeared in an episode of The Men from the Ministry which co-starred Richard Murdoch.

While he generally disliked TV work, Costa did appear on several Juke Box Jury shows. He was also a regular on David Frost's Frost on Sunday in 1970. He was a Radio Luxembourg DJ in the early 1960s - an hour-long show sponsored by Guard's Cigarettes. On BBC Radio 2 he had various shows; morning, lunchtime, afternoon, early evening, and late night, until his death in 1981.

• A Piece of Cake (1948)
• Trouble in the Air (1948)
• One Wild Oat (1951)
• The Pickwick Papers (1952)
• Just For You (1964)

• Obituary, Jewish Chronicle, 2 October 1981
• R2OK! Radio 2 Preservation Society and Radio 2 Timeline Project (2007)
• This England's Second Book of British Dance Bands (2001).
• British Dance Bands On Record 2nd Ed. (1989) by Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes.

• "Internet Archive Search: Sam Costa - archive.org (multimedia content in the public domain)". Retrieved 30 April 2012.
• "British Pathé Search: Sam Costa - britishpathe.com". Retrieved 3 May 2012.